Berenice II, 17th century (oil on canvas)

BERENICE II (25 December 267 BC to 221 BC) in the interpretation of Bernardo Strozzi (1581-2 August 1644), a religious and painter of the Italian Baroque, also called “il Cappuccino” or “the Genoese Priest”. According to myth Berenice, queen of Cyrenaica and wife of Pharaoh Ptolemy III, made a vow to cut off her long head of hair provided her husband returned victorious from the war against the Syrians. When this occurred, she kept her promise: she sacrificed her hair and took it to the temple dedicated to Aphrodite Zephyrite. On the day the votive offering vanished, Egyptian mathematician Conon of Samus pointed to a group of stars near the Constellation of Leo, saying that “Berenice's head of hair” had joined the Constellations. Claudius Ptolemy describes this constellation in his “Almagestus”. Painting, XVII century Italy